Never Forgotten: Using DNA to Repatriate Soldiers with Megan Smolenyak

Episode 18 coincides with Pearl Harbor Day. To commemorate the day we spoke with genetic genealogist, Megan Smolenyak about her history with the Army and her work assisting the government with giving names to many of the unknown soldiers from various conflicts.

Special Guest

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show transcription

[00:00:04] David: Hi everyone, I’m David Allen Lambert. And welcome to our latest episode of virtual historians. I’m here with Terri O’Connell and a very special guest. And I’m going to let Terri introduce our guest who I’m sure you know.

[00:00:18] Terri: Well, I’m just very excited to have Meghan Smolenyak with us. She has probably the one genealogist that I’ve always kind of fan-girl over. So it’s always exciting to get to talk to her. 

[00:00:29] David: Oh, I fanboy over her.

[00:00:34] Megan: If you could see me, I’m blushing. 

[00:00:38] David: Megan. It’s so wonderful to hear your voice. I miss seeing you at conferences and around. I mean, I was trying to think the other day when the last time I may have seen you in a conference, it may have been the one that was in Vegas. 

[00:00:49] Megan: Oh, I don’t know. It’s been awhile. It’s been a while.

[00:00:52] Terri: That’s when I saw her. That’s the only one I’ve seen her at. 

[00:00:55] David: Well, if anybody has ever met Megan, she understand how amazing and her personality is great. As far as I’m concerned, you are the godmother of DNA research. I have your book still from long ago,

[00:01:14] Megan: It was, yeah. An early one.. 

[00:01:16] David: How many years ago was that published now? 

[00:01:18] Megan: Do you know that book was published in 2004? We wrote it in 2003 and I had a discipline myself. I wanted to write it like 2001, but I knew the market wasn’t ready for it yet, but you know, that thing is still in print. All these years later, which really surprised me with that topic. 

[00:01:35] David: I was at the Deseret bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, just a couple of weeks ago, they had their stand and they didn’t have a lot of books, but there was your book on the bookstand and I was like, Hey, I know her. 

[00:01:47] Megan: Who do you think you are? Book. Yeah, that was sweet. That was nice to see that. Thank you for sharing.

[00:01:52] David: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think a lot of us take DNA for granted, but it was always something that we wondered about back in the eighties and the nineties never even really gave it much thought that we could ever find out quick way at what our ancestry or heritage could be by a spit test. I can still remember when it was blood tests when we did it.

[00:02:17] Megan: This is taking you way back, but Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, they used to use blood tests and they had to find a noninvasive way to get it because their database was getting lopsided because apparently a lot of gentlemen are afraid of needles or disproportionately, so it was getting heavily female. And that’s why, if you remember this, oh, this is talking about the dark ages. They went to mouthwash for awhile. 

[00:02:40] David: They did, I remember that. 

[00:02:42] Megan: Yeah, yeah.. We’re taking everybody on a path into the past of genealogy, genetic genealogy. Yeah. 

[00:02:49] David: Well, you know, it’s funny cause I remember when Sorenson was at NEHGS or I think I had, it was only working in there about 13 years was FGS 2006 and they were set up in our rotunda taking the first test. It was through the multiple wash one. And I was like, I’m like I remember signing up for, was it relative genetics? 

[00:03:14] Megan: Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s who wound up with their database eventually. 

[00:03:18] David: I mean, I know that that was a debated thing for awhile. 

[00:03:20] Megan: Because remember they had Y in mitochondrial, which ancestry kind of sidesteps. So unfortunately that has been lost. . 

[00:03:28] David: Oh, 

yeah. I used to love the printouts from a couple of them, but the sad thing is we can’t get that information back. Besides DNA, obviously what you’ve done with DNA and what you’ve done for the families or veterans is the real reason that we’re having you on today.

As we approach the 80th commemoration of Pearl Harbor. December 7th, 1941. I think that that day doesn’t resignate some memory in your mind is a historian or an American that is the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor a morning. And that’s Sunday, December 7th. And a lot of news has been on.

About finding remains of the unknown in the Punchbowl. And over the past, I don’t know, Megan, I know that you haven’t been directly involved with the Pearl Harbor, but just kind of a segue for about the past decade. They’ve been maybe starting to identify the unknowns from the Oklahoma. 

[00:04:29] Megan: The Oklahoma is a fairly recent initiative. I want to say that’s the only the past. Ooh. Three four years something I got maybe five, something like that. Yeah, because it was a long time before they decided to do, let’s say collections like that, where they, there was debate about they’re essentially, already they’ve been put to the. Do we take this next step?

And then it was you no matter what the family wanted and that kind of thing. And so they finally made the decision to, to do all the cases there. So they should have a very high identification rate on that project because essentially they know who’s there, you know? 

[00:05:06] David: Yeah. It’s amazing. When you think of all the unknowns, I mean, and then we kind of fast forward to the tomb of the unknown soldier who technically. would not be unknown now. I mean, because of the technology with the DNA, I mean, I know that they probably wouldn’t do it, but I would think that even for what they read, what remains they did find over in France at the time that they probably could identify who he is now, or at least in their relative, correct?

[00:05:32] Megan: Two of the cases I’ve worked on over the years have been people who were regarded as unknowns who had, who were identified. But that’s just two out of all the cases I’ve done. 

[00:05:44] David: So how many cases have you done? 

[00:05:47] Megan: I am creeping up on 1600. 

[00:05:51] Terri: Wow. 

[00:05:54] David: That’s more than a regiment. That’s almost a tool we’re going to call it. The Meghan battalion. 

[00:06:01] Megan: Well, I’ve been at it for a while, so, and I mean, in fact, it’s so work with the army that got me into DNA in the first place I’ve been doing it since technically I’ve been doing it since the last century, I been doing it since 99.

[00:06:14] David: Really? Can you bring us back to that first year that you were doing it and how you got involved and the reaction? I still love that photograph of you receiving the flag. It’s a powerful phototgraph. 

[00:06:26] Megan: Yeah, that was my first one. Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of serendipitous that I got involved. I lived in the DC area at the time. And I was on a book tour for my very first book and I was just speaking at a local bookstore and a woman came to the talk who turned out to be the Colonel who was in charge of the Army’s portion of this initiative.

And it was early days. It was still kind of figuring things out. And so what they had decided to do was try on a bunch of genealogists for science for about a year.. And see how it went and that’s what they did. And at the end of the year two of us were getting contracts and I’ve been doing it ever since then.

So it’s a matter of right place, right time. But I also happen to be an army brat. So I feel like I’m the right person as well to get to do this because it means the world to me. And in terms of what you were just talking about that photograph. The very first one of my soldiers to be identified. He was Korean war soldier, and he was the first actually from the Korean war who had been identified in decades.

And I went to his his Memorial at Arlington national and much to my surprise. I was the only one not associated with the cemetery who showed up? 

[00:07:45] David: Really?

[00:07:46] Megan: Well, this was early days people now, you know, I still, I still can a number of Memorial services and now you get large crowds, mixed media. And it’s usually kind of a big deal, but back then nobody knew about it. Right. So I was asked by. The people performing the ceremony. If I would receive the flag for the purposes of the ceremony, which I of course did. And immediately I want to make a clear handed it back. So it would be sent to the family, you know, but I, you know, I was. It was a real privilege to stand in for him.

[00:08:20] David: Well, you know, it’s, it’s tremendous because being a child of a veteran myself, and if my dad hadn’t come home from the war, if he hadn’t come home from the war, my dad was a World War II. I would have been born. But in the context of say Vietnam, to give that closure to people, I mean, I can’t even comprehend how it must be for the person to make that aha moment.

Like you’ve done for 1600. You know, and for the families to finally know dad’s home or he has a brother, 

[00:08:53] Megan: I’ve done 1600 cases. I don’t know how many of them have been identified. 

[00:08:57] David: Sure

[00:08:57] Megan: It’s a long process. More and more it’s picked up speed for a variety of reasons. One of which is just the technology keeps getting better, you know?

But yeah, it’s first of all, to me, because my dad did serve in Vietnam and I was a little kid, but I remember crossing the days off the calendar. I have a letter that I wrote to him saying Dear, Daddy, which side is winning? Stacy, my sister got, got new knee socks. So these two were equally important.

[00:09:26] David: That’s awesome

[00:09:27] Megan: So I remember it very well and I was lucky he came home and these people, you know, not only did they lose a loved one, but they’ve been left wondering for decades, what became of them?

[00:09:39] David: For vietnam, I mean, even true with World War II and Korea, maybe not so much, but there are still finding crash sites and they’re finding some fragments of bone or some human remains of some sort that I think, you know, if they had been found 25 years ago, that would just be unknown, but there’s hope now through efforts that you’re doing and others, right?

[00:10:05] Megan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s just to give you some sense. There’s still about 82,000 missing across all the conflicts. There were relatively few from Vietnam and Southeast Asia. We did a lot of those cases early on. And initially we began with Korea which had about 8,000. Those we managed to get DNA reference samples from over 90% of the soldiers. So for example, when that’s those 52 sets of remains, think it was 52 sets, remains from return to a couple of years back. I expected some fairly rapid identifications cause I knew we already had the DNA samples, you know, essentially a DNA bank.

Initially, there wasn’t too much in the way of World War II and World War I is still just an exceptional thing. I only get to do a World War I case from time to time. That’s usually like when you read a story about a French farmer plowing a field and finding something or that kind of yeah. That kind of thing.

But they get identified some of the ones from I’ve been to services for soldiers from World War I, but the majority who are missing still are from World War II. That’s about, I’m gonna say, like 85, 90% of the 82,000, I told you. And most of those about three quarters of those are from like the Indo-Pacific area

[00:11:29] David: Yeah I was going to ask if it was Europe?

[00:11:33] Megan: And a good chunk of them. About half of them were lost at sea, which makes it more challenging. Although, they’re starting to be recoveries, you know, from, from the ocean as well. So the DNA keeps advancing the isotopic testing. Different means they have identifications and the recoveries, for the excavations of technology that can use for the excavation spot, everything just keeps improving.

And so, you know, better and better and better. And the you know, the resolution rates are quicker now than they used to be. 

[00:12:04] David: Sure. I mean I w I can just remember the cost of DNA when decode me relative genetics, and Navigenics came out. It was like a thousand dollars for, 

[00:12:18] Megan: yeah. I have to tell you though, for the repatriation efforts, so DNA is a little bit different.

In the early days they only use mitochondrial. The reason that when you’re dealing with degraded remains, it’s a little different what a genealogists do. Mitochondrial DNA is more huntable and so it’s more resilient in a sense, it was easier to secure enough to amplify and test it.

Then finally, I’m going to say 2009 ish, they started to be able to use Y DNA. Which course is more precise. And of course they would probably do both. Right. That’s a double verification. And then we’re going to say it’s about five or six years ago. They started using autosomal. But again, it’s not the way genealogists do it. Right now because we’re dealing with degraded remains. You have to have fairly close relatives. You’re mostly hoping for cases where the soldiers did live long enough to have children, or if they still have siblings alive, that kind of thing. You’re hoping for really close relatives. I assume like everything else, you know, that will start stretching as well, and they’ll be able to do it with you know, relatives were more and more distantly related.

The way we can when we’re just looking for our cousins. 

[00:13:30] David: I think about, World War I being so long ago, but I remember ’em was in recent years, they brought up the Hunley, that Confederate submarine and they knew who was on it, but did, they use DNA to. Determine who each one of the skeletal remains were?

[00:13:45] Megan: I saw a documentary on that. And unfortunately they did do a DNA, but somebody messed up and they did DNA on his step relative. I worked on the USS monitor. I don’t understand from all the research I did. I don’t understand why there hasn’t been, at least one identification announced there still hasn’t been from all the data and not just the DNA. We’re talking all the information, 

[00:14:09] David: right. 

[00:14:10] Megan: By process of elimination, they should have been able to identify one of the two skeletons. I don’t know why that hasn’t happened at this point. But I keep on waiting for it. Cause I know I, you know, I know that relatives from around the world literally DNA tested and you could tell from the information. I’ve dug up all their records. And so, you know, who was how tall and you knew different facets, like the testing where like how like the isotope testing, which helped you determine where they grew up, right? Because of the water ingested into your teeth. And I want to say. Oh, like six of the candidates were European born, so they should’ve been able to say, oh, this is a Danish guy or this, you know, so they should have been able to identify one.

I keep on, I’m assuming that’s still working process. I keep on waiting to hear so. 

[00:15:05] David: Well, you know, it’s funny you talk about remains and of course, I mean, going way back when, when we were fighting with stone knives, the fellow found in the Alps, I’m still waiting for the descendants to be found. I mean, there’s gotta be some descendants of him kicking around. I would think it’s like cheddar man that they found in the cave.

[00:15:27] Megan: And the way that it must be very strange. All of a sudden you’re on TV because you related to somebody with several thousand years. 

[00:15:33] David: Well, I mean, do you remember when the DNA, I mean, obviously of course you, when, when it first came out, they had some fellow in Florida who was, you know, he had the same Y DNA as Gangas Kahn.

And I was like, it doesn’t mean it’s his descendants 

[00:15:50] Megan: and they messed it up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the early days you know, some of the TV shows and so forth, they took the liberties. They would say people were cousins just because they had the same haplogroup, you know, it’s a maternal, paternal haplogroup and that kind of stuff.

I’m glad we finally graduated from that. But yeah, it didn’t take much to get a lot of attention. So I think people would embellish their claims. 

[00:16:17] David: I remember when the, when Brian Sykes came out with the Seven Daughters of Eve. Like I predict there’s probably more than seven. I mean, I don’t know what are we at now? 30 40?

[00:16:29] Megan: But you know, thank goodness he did that because he brought a lot of attention to the field, you know, so that, you know, I mean, for the longest time, like I remember Since I started doing DNA early, it took me, I was already established speaker and writer, but it took me two full years to get anybody to accept a lecture on genetic genealogy or article.

Yeah. Two full years. Wow. It’s asking him to come on and come back. No, it’s like, everybody is very resistant. People who are new to it. First of all, if it’s strange, how many people think it’s only been around for 10 years now, it’s over two decades old, but people who are newer to it also forget how much resistance there was to it.

Initially. I mean, I got a lot of pushback in the early days. I think a lot of people thought that you know, oh this is gonna replace traditional genealogy. It’s like, no, no, no. The two play really well together. You know, you could go further, faster with both of them. And then, you know, sometimes you can solve a mystery with DNA that you can’t with the traditional research and sometimes vice versa.

It just depends. But usually you want them in conjunction, but there was just so much push back in that early days. I’m trying to think. Don Devine was another fairly early one and Christine Rhodes,

[00:17:43] David: Christine. Gosh. 

[00:17:44] Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. First sort of fellow professionals or a member actually venturing out there saying, Hey guys, really there’s something here.

We should pay attention to it. 

[00:17:55] David: Well, you know, I remembered writing an article for American Ancestors Magazine. Gosh could have been New England Ancestors Magazine now, far back, and it was comparing the three decode me Navigenics and 23 and me on the health statistics, you know, and say what you got for each one back then.

Of course it was a thousand dollars. I remember my family saying they’re going to clone you, you know? And I’m like, really? I said, that’s great because I already had one clone, my child. So I thought point cut my lawn, go to work. I’m like, this is great. So I’ve been tested with every company now. So I’m waiting for a bus load of David Lamberts to show up in Boston. Give me the week off, you know, 

[00:18:39] Megan: because your Icelandic version. Yeah, no, I use the same thing. Cause you know, speaking about it and writing about it, I had to get tested with every company. Although I often use my father and my husband has my Guinea pigs because in the early days, some of them you needed a Y-chromosome for me, but yeah, I had to, yes.

And I remember I remember 23 and me and decode me launching within 24 hours of each other. So boom, there was $2,000 right there. And you weren’t finding your cousins because there are only like 12 other people testing 

[00:19:08] David: to get those same tests in a breakfast cereal. Now as a prize, 

[00:19:13] Megan: pretty much in, and guess what, you can find your cousins really fast cause so many people have done it.

You know, we, we all knew it was a matter of waiting for the databases to grow, you know, but it was also really fun to have the opportunity to be a pioneer. You know, you don’t. 

[00:19:29] David: Truly are a pioneer. I think that we’re all the better for the efforts that you really kind of laid forth. I mean, with your book and lecturing and all that, I mean, we wouldn’t have, you know, the CeCeS and the Blaines in the world, if there weren’t people like you, Megan, that actually did this. So thank you. I mean, it’s, it’s tremendous. 

[00:19:48] Megan: It’s been a lot of fun and I’m, you know, I’m, I’m one of the early adopters for sure. But there you know, I had plenty of company, so, I mean, I remember like the earliest get-togethers where most of the FTD and a Family Tree DNA conferences.

And that’s actually how I saw it started. Cause Katherine Hope Borgess were just at one of them and I spoke and I said, you know what? Outside of this room, like, everybody’s hardcore genetic genealogist, but outside of this room, nobody’s heard of this. And that’s what inspired her to start getting the word out.

[00:20:18] David: Yeah, well, you know, if it wasn’t for Y DNA on my Lambert’s that came from Ireland, I really not have much. I know he arrived in 1792 to Nova Scotia and a broke Lamberton Lampert sound about the same when we were Lampert’s before we were Lambert’s. I get a match at a hundred out of 111 markers with a guy named Jim Lambert. Who’s probably listening. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. His family came over 90 years after mine. And the only thing that we don’t know where we came from, but I know where his family came from in the north and the idea. 11 mismatches is about 500 years. It means I don’t have a paternity issue for a few centuries, which is nice, 

[00:21:02] Megan: well, it’s still out there all these years later, still waiting for a match work. (for her father) 

I think we’re were just a random little branch, also the world’s family tree, or just very rare, apparently. 

[00:21:13] David: No. Nope. Just unique. Very unique. 

[00:21:18] Megan: Well, he’s been tested at every place. I keep on waiting for him to pop up. I mean, a match that I don’t already know about, 

[00:21:23] David: you know? Exactly. Don’t you love it. It’s like your cousin that shows up.

Ah, I know who that is. And they try to use initials and I call them on the phone. I’m like, Hey, I see you tested with ancestry. Like, how do you know? And I said, because your tree showed up on my screen, 

[00:21:39] Megan: you know what? I’m going to go back to the early days too. You mentioned 23 and me I was actually 23 and me’s first family surprise.

In fact, I had to explain to them how I figured it out. What happened is I was one of their beta testers and back then I’m speaking so much about it writing. I tested the tester without telling them, and I created a little experiment. They gave me a subsidized rate since I was a beta tester and I accidentally through my experiment wound up discovering that my father’s only brother was really his half brother and it was, and I had accidentally just, I just tested the right combination of people that, the piece that together.

And so I had to figure that out. And then I explained to them and they were like, wait a minute, wait a minute, had our stuff, show you that. And it’s like, okay. I had to walk them through. And I remember in the early years they used to use that kind of as a case study, to explain to people that, Hey, you could get a surprise.

You know, but it was kind of strange because you know, I’d been doing genealogy forever by then already. And I had no inkling, no inkling that my dad’s brother was only his half brother. 

[00:22:46] David: Well, you know, I had the same story in my family. It was a story and my cousins didn’t believe me. My dad said to me that his siblings are male siblings, half siblings.

And I’m like, all right, well, dad’s gone. He died in 99. My uncles and aunts are all gone. I said, well, that cousins aren’t. So when I tested them and they came up as half cousins, I’m like, see., and then we have one half-brother alive. And I said, I want to do your Y DNA. And I did it through FTD and a, and the matches with the man that my grandmother had the children with the same last name.

And sure enough, my Lamberts are lowly Irish, which are my near and dear to my heart. My grandmother’s relationship with this other person who has a Mayflower line.

Why? I can’t get one, but.

[00:23:34] Megan: So I can relate. 

Speaking of that, congratulations on your good friend, Joe. At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

I’m pleased for all of us. He’s a good man. And he’s a very. 

[00:23:48] David: He’s a very good man. And I always remember seeing the pictures of you and pictures of Obama and think what a lucky lady.

[00:23:57] Megan: With Joe Biden. I did those roots and that didn’t get nearly as much attention, but he knew about it and you know, you always share all, you know, some strange calls. I was just in my office one Friday afternoon, the phone rang and it was him. This was when he was vice president. He said, Joe Biden, vice president.

He took the time to explain who he was after that he started inviting me to St. Patty’s day breakfast each year. So 

[00:24:22] David: that’s excellent.

[00:24:24] Megan: So it’s it’s really fun. It’s all these muckety mucks and you know, people like me and his veterinarian, you know, 

[00:24:32] David: Has he done his DNA. He must’ve because you found relatives that I believe.

[00:24:38] Megan: No, i, you don’t need. I did a lot of digging on history. It’s a lot of digging those roots. But I don’t know that he’s DNA tested and I wouldn’t especially suggest that he do it since he’s got some profile, you know? I know there’s one branch that there’s Irish. That I was able to verify it through DNA. Just through, you know, distant relatives of his who had tested, I could kind of piece it together. But for somebody with a high profile, I would think they might be a little more cautious about jumping into. You know, 

[00:25:14] David: cause that whole conspiracy theory on cloning will just come to the surface 

[00:25:20] Megan: air on the side of caution.

[00:25:21] David: That’s absolutely. 

Absolutely. So, all right. We’re going to look at the looking glass here. Technology. Where do you see the field going? Oh, And we’re really at the tip of the iceberg. I’ve always thought, I like to say that we should all freeze our DNA samples and leave it for future generations to unravel even more.

Cause I always think of how many times are kits that are out there that, you know, and they all, while we have one or two more samples left that we can run before they need to get another sample, like with FTDNA, I often think of there should be like a DNA cryogenic bank we can leave for. 

[00:26:01] Megan: Yeah, I’ll tell you. One thing I would like to just it’s become easier is, excuse me, extraction for average, Joe’s. You know, it we keep on getting sort of teased about, oh, it’s going to be so easy to get it from stamps or whatever. And of course. You know, in certain environments for criminal research and that kind of thing, but for average Joe’s, I, you know, I’d like to just see some retail operations with affordable places that we can all just kind of go through whatever we might have from our ancestors who are no longer with us and get them tested so that we can test that great great-grandparent or whatever. If you happen to have some possessions, you know, right now, what if there was except you’ve got like, I have my grandfather’s World War I. Now of course it’s been handled, so that’s not great, but what if I could test a few people, touched it, eliminate them, and then see what’s left. You know, things like that.

[00:27:00] David: Yeah. That’s like I have the leather sweatband on the helmet that belonged to my wife’s great-grandfather I’m sure there’s probably something soaked into the leather. It’s hard. It’s hard to know in it’s true. There, there’s just not a lot. I mean, unlike autosomal DNA, where you can get a lot of different testing companies out there. So the prices get down in price really. I mean, Yeah, family tree DNA is really for why DNA and mitochondrial is really the best show in town. And really one of the, I mean, I know that I’m 23 and me gives you predicted. But not to the detail more than 

[00:27:37] Megan: what I see as sort of a loss, you know, what’s odd is almost came to the fore.

Those two were kind of back-burnered, but they’re really powerful depending on what you’re doing, you know, especially for history mysteries is depending on what you’re doing. You know, obviously the best thing is to have all three, especially if you’re dealing with a male where had mitochondrial and autosomal with the female.

I wish that were also more readily available. It’s it’s funny. It is coming back. And it’s interesting to me because, you know, from the early days first, it was Y DNA than it was mitochondrial. For those of us just doing it for ourselves. Now, those who are fairly new to it have been doing honors Alma and that’s all they know.

And then now they think Y and mitochondria are the new things. And it’s like, no, no, these are the parents of the other ones. The other ones have been around forever, but now it’s starting to feel newfangled, but however, it happens. It’s a good thing because the more people doing all the different types of tests, the better, but yeah, for solving particular mysteries, like with my dad, I’m still waiting for that Y match.

He’s got plenty of. And I’m waiting for that Y match. 

[00:28:38] David: I’m waiting for people across the pond. I mean, I mean having both having Irish heritage, like we both do, it’s like getting people that are over in the UK or in Ireland to actually test. That we could get a match, you know, shy of getting that requests that I get occasionally at the reference desk. And you’ll love this. And probably you’ve heard this before. People want to know if it’s legal to make a request, to dig up their great great-grandparent to get. Yeah, but is it ethical? You know, I mean, it’s not a crime. It’s like when they, you know, we’re trying to figure out if, what Zachary Taylor was poisoned or William Henry Harrison, or one of the two of them, they had to exhume the remains.

I mean, to do it just for the fanciful idea that you want to find out what your great great, great. Grandmother’s mitochondrial line. 

[00:29:28] Megan: No, I think it’s fair game per se, you know, a documentary, but even then, I’m really fussy. Like I gave you the example earlier with the Hunley there, there really was a documentary where somebody did sloppy research and they DNA tested it.

They dug up to get a reference sample and then they tested against a step relative. No, yeah, no, you, you needed to seek that out before you, disinterred somebody, you know, to me, it’s, it’s acceptable to do it for historical purposes, but you need to make sure you’ve got it right. And that’s, that’s the way I am with my army cases.

I’m sort of obsessive about them because if I get something wrong, they may not be identified. You know? So I’m obsessive about solving them and I’m obsessive getting them right. 

[00:30:12] David: Well, I, I, again, being the child of the veteran and, you know, being, you know, following what you’ve done for so many years, thanks what you do all the time.

It’s amazing, man. And continue to do it. Never retire from it. Because, you know, and, and maybe they’ll come a day that what you do, won’t be necessary, ’cause you know, that maybe we won’t have wars and maybe we don’t have veterans that are unidentified or go missing. But as you said, with over 80,000 missing, 

[00:30:50] Megan: we’re still 80,000 unaccounted for, yeah it’s unfortunate. 

[00:30:55] David: And you think that a lot of them still have family that are, you know, around may even be grandchildren or great-grandchildren at great nephews or nieces. I mean, it’s still in resonant memory, you know, World War II and, and for some people, even, you know, new people from World War I, and the stories passed down, the dad never came home.

So I’m not a vet to salute you, but I salute you. 

I really, really appreciate having you on the show. I, you know, like I said, myself, the Terri, I said, we really need to have Megan on the show with Pearl Harbor coming up and with everything you do for veterans, I should’ve got it for veterans day. So this is a happy medium and really, really, really pleased.

And Terri, do you have any questions I’ve been kind of going on the whole time and Terri you’ve been in the background.

[00:31:49] Terri: I just like to listen because the military has never been my cup of tea. Like it’s not anything I really do a lot of research into. So I know that that was more But but you know, I do go and I look for my soldiers and stuff like that, but I’ve never done like really in depth stuff with them. So I just kinda like to listen. And honestly, the first time I heard Megan speak, she spoke about… it was a DNA case.

And she, she said to me, she says, I’ve never given this lecture before, so maybe wait. And I was like, oh no, I can’t. And it was NGS in Vegas. And it was, it was outstanding. I was like, just floored. So I honestly like if she’s ever in your area speaking, you definitely need to go hear her. As I told her before you got on David. All my societies in the area. I always ask. Can you just bring Meghan in.

[00:32:52] Megan: I hit 43 states and half a dozen countries so far, so. 

[00:32:58] David: That’s awesome. Well, that means you can’t retire anytime soon. 

[00:33:02] Megan: I’m not planning on it. I’m not on it now. I still have way too many mysteries to solve. 

[00:33:09] David: And that is the truth of a genealogy and history.

I think that if it was ever all done. Oh, do we end up taking up as a hobby? I mean, I suppose I could learn mountain climbing or something.

No, I think I’ll stick to genealogy. Having my two feet firmly planted on the ground is probably safer. Even though I have fallen into some ditches at cemeteries, but that’s a story for another episode. Well, on behalf of myself and I’m sure also with Terri, Megan, thank you for being our guest. And again, thank you so much for what you do.

And everyone, if you have a veteran out there that you have in your family, Give them an extra hug. The idea that so many of them never came home is riveting. When you hear the number over 80,000. How many families that were affected with no closure? but thanks to Megan, you know, all the work that she’s done is really brought closure from many families and probably many more to come.

So. Yeah, virtually yours signing off from this episode and stay tuned for our next time that we come on and give you a different way of looking at the past. Thank you so much.